First of all - thanks to everyone for the excellent information found in these forums! It has been a great assistance to our Swiss travel planning.

We will be traveling from Murren to Milan. Part of our planned itinerary was to include riding the EuroCity train from Arth-Goldau to Milano Centrale. This portion requires a reservation; and the SBB site shows this route as having "very high occupancy", so we would like to purchase these reservations before our arrival, if possible.

Our question: We will be traveling using Swiss Passes. I understand there is an additional fee for the reservation, as well as additional charges for the travel portion that is in Italy. Rail Europe allows me to enter my pass type, then shows me a dollar value for the reservation. However, the fine print seems to indicates that the price assumes I have some sort of pass that includes both Switzerland and Italy, which I do not.

So: Is there a way to purchase (in advance) a seat reservation on a trip that starts in Switzerland and ends in Italy, without having paid for the Italian portion yet? Thanks for any help. Tom

Hi Tom! It's nice to know that this forum has been helpful for your preparations.

As for your question: RailEurope doesn't allow you to make a difference between discount options for several countries involved in one journey. The SBB timetable does offer this option: it allows you to enter your entire journey and to indicate if you have a discount option for Switzerland only. Enter your departure and arrival station, the travel date and your preferred departure or arrival time. Next, click 'Search connection' and select the right connection from the list. Follow the steps in the order procedure. During step 2, you will be asked if you have a reduction for Switzerland. Pick 'GA' in either 1st or 2nd class from the drop-downlist, as this so-called 'General-Abonnement' offers the exact same discounts as the Swiss Pass does. If you do so, the right price will automatically be calculated, including the discounts for the Swiss leg and the regular prices for the Italian leg.

Why yes....this is a most useful piece of information. I checked the rates picking different destinations in Italy (Milan, and our final stop in Varenna). It appears SBB does calculate the total price for the reservation and the additional Italian legs of our intended journey, and allows us to purchase everything in advance.

We will be departing in less than a week, so we may just take our chances and see if we can make our reservations once we arrive. I've done so much pre-planning already; it might be nice to just let the winds of fate decide for us. I had wanted to ride the William Tell route into Milan; but I am guessing that Brig to Milan would also be interesting as well.We have all day to get from Murren to Varenna, Italy; I'm sure it will be an adventure regardless!